Sorry, the issue is more legal than technical. The dish is capable of picking up all sorts of locals. Unfortunately the laws allowing local channels is very limiting on what you can receive without the consent of the TV stations in question and the TV stations that have copyrights in your area.
So...the current law states if the satellite company offers your locals, that is all you can have. You can ask your local NETWORK stations (ABC, CBS, NBC Fox ONLY) for a "waiver" (they are waiving their exclusive copyrights of their programming and allowing you to get other network affiliates), but these are hard to get. If you do get a waiver, Dish currently offers the big 4 networks from NYC, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago and LA nationwide. They also offer the big 4 networks from Portland, OR, Jacksonville, Kansas City and Dallas within the local spot beam area.
There are also "superstations". TBS and WGN Superstation are not superstations any more. They are cable channels that call themselves superstations. WTBS Atlanta rebreadcasts the cable channel and not the other way around.
In most areas of the country, Dish offers WPIX (WB), WWOR (UPN) New York, KWGN (WB) Denver, WSBK (UPN) Boston and KTLA (WB) Los Angeles. You can buy these stations for $1.50/mo each or $5.99/mo the set. These are the last 5 stations that are specifically exempt from copyright laws and syndicated exclusivity for the most part. It is a vestige left over from before Congress stepped in to enforce copyright and syndicated excusivity contracts the stations had. These stations have 4 years to live IMHO. When the next version of the SHVA/SHVIA/SHVERA is written, I believe these stations' exemptions will not be reauthorized.
See ya
Tony